Trouble
by Gypsy Love
Summary: <html><head></head>Sylvia hanging onto Johnny while Dallas is away.</html>
1. Chapter 1

Sylvia hanging onto Johnny…

Dally was in the slammer again. I wasn't sure what he had done this time, but he got busted and hauled off. I was at my house after school, I don't know why I ever went there. Nothing good ever happened there. My mother wasn't home and I had no idea where she was. I was watching T.V. but nothing was on. Then my old man came home. He looked at me and kind of nodded and I just stared at him. I always had to wonder what kind of mood he was in or if he was drunk. He'd usually hit me if he was, and sometimes when he wasn't. He'd ignore me or hit me, that was it.

But this time he wasn't really doing either. He got himself a beer from the fridge and I watched him drink it out of the corner of my eyes. He flipped the T.V. dial, not because he didn't want to watch the stupid show I was watching but just because things had to be his way. I didn't care.

"Johnny," he said, and already he was slurring his words. This wasn't his first drink of the day. Sometimes he woke up and started drinking. I could feel my heart start to beat kind of fast, and it almost hurt. I had that feeling like I wanted to run.

"Yeah?" I said, feeling my muscles tense up. How many times had he just suddenly whacked me? I couldn't count them. Ever since I was little, my whole life he's been hitting me. Just last week he'd beaten me with his leather belt and I couldn't really remember what I had done, but of course I deserved it.

"Uh, how's school?" he said, the words running into each other, weak at the edges. He was really drunk. I watched him slam that beer down and go and get another one. Then he came back and sat down again and I was still thinking about how school was. I'd gone today and it was lousy. I didn't have any of my homework done and the teachers looked at me like I was hopeless. I wished for just one minute I could be Ponyboy cause he was so smart and always had everything done and knew all the answers. I never knew any of the answers.

"Okay," I said, because I couldn't tell my old man how things really were.

He watched T.V. but didn't seem to be really seeing it. All I could smell was beer. I had to get out of here. He seemed fine now but it wouldn't last. But I was afraid to move, afraid if I got up and said I was leaving he'd find some reason to yell at me and grab the collar of my jacket and tell me how worthless I was, how I messed everything up and the lessons he needed to teach me. I'd learned those lessons, alright.

My mother showed up, and I saw the way they looked at each other, like they really hated each other.

"You're drunk," she said to him, and I saw how angry he looked all of a sudden, and I took off then. It was better to leave before anything started.

"Johnny!" my mother called to me while I was on the porch. I didn't want to stop and listen to whatever she was going to say but I did. I couldn't help it.

"Where are you going?" she said, narrowing her eyes at me.

"Out," I said.

"With those no good hoodlum friends of yours?" she said, and I winced. Didn't she know I was just like them, pretty much? I didn't do the shit they did, really, like stealing and all that, but I was just as no good as they were.

I didn't answer her, there was never any way to answer her. I heard my dad yell at her from inside the house and when she turned her head I left.

Smoking at the lot, the wind whipping by, carrying the smoke off fast. I wished Dally wasn't in the slammer again. Down the street I saw someone coming toward me and as they got closer I saw it was Dally's girlfriend Sylvia. She tugged at her skirt and wobbled on her high heels.

"Hey, Johnny," she said, pulling a cigarette out of her little purse and lighting it up.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hi," I said softly, smoking my cigarette. I looked at her from the corners of my eyes. She wore a lot of make-up and her hair was teased up with hairspray, but under all that she was kinda pretty. Her eyes were like bluish/green and she was tall and skinny and everything. I could see why Dal liked her and all.

"What's going on?" she said, moving closer to me. I could smell her perfume, it smelled like flowers. I took a step away, thinking how Dally might kill me if she got much closer. But she laughed when I stepped away and she came even closer and leaned against me. It was kind of nice, in a way, but she scared me. I just wasn't that great with girls. I didn't really know what to say to them or nothing.

I swallowed hard and I could feel her leaning against me and I figured if I moved away again she'd just come closer, so I stayed where I was. I looked down at the ground, at the grass and the dirt and the broken glass and my black sneakers that were so faded and dirty that they hardly looked black anymore.

"Uh, nothing," I said, pulling the last drag from my cigarette and tossing it away. She blew her smoke out delicately from the side of her mouth.

"Know what?" she said, her mouth so close to my ear that I could feel her breath.

"What?" I said, thinking about Dally. He might hit me over this. God knows he's hit all the others for less. But he's never hit me, and I kind of thought he wouldn't. Maybe. But I didn't want to really test this theory.

"You're kind of cute," she said, and I could feel myself blushing. Cute? Maybe I looked kind of tough sometimes because of all the bruises and black eyes and my dark greasy hair that was so long and my hoodlum clothes. But I wouldn't say I looked cute. I glanced at her again, and this close I could see the blush she put on her cheeks and the red lipstick caked on her lips.

"Uh, Sylvia?" I said, disentangling myself from her. I stepped away again and this time she stayed where she was.

"Yeah?" She had pitched her cigarette and now she unwrapped juicy fruit gum and the smell filled my nose.

"Uh, what about Dally?" I said.

Now she scowled and looked down and ground out her cigarette with her high heel.

"What about him? He's in the slammer again, and do you think he cares about me at all? Of course he doesn't. He gets in so much trouble and never thinks about me at all," She came back over to me and put her arms around my neck and smiled.

"But you? You're so cute and you never get into trouble and I bet you're nothing like Dally at all,"

I let her kind of hang onto me because maybe I liked it, and maybe it wasn't so easy getting away from her. And she couldn't be more right about me being nothing like Dally. He wasn't afraid of anything and he could do anything. I wasn't like that. I was afraid of my old man and his temper and his belt and I was afraid of the damn socs since they almost killed me and I was afraid of the knife in my back pocket since I knew I'd use it. I didn't want to hurt anybody, I really didn't, but everyone kept hurting me. And I bet Dally never said he was gonna kill himself and mean it, like I meant it. Maybe I'd use the damn switchblade on myself, just slit through my wrists and end it all.

"Yeah," I said, and then I felt like I could kiss her if I wanted to. It wasn't me, I wasn't that forward or fast with girls, like I said, I hardly talked to them at all. But the way she had her arms around me and her head kind of tilted and her mouth was open just a little and I could smell that gum. I could just lean my head down and kiss her. I wouldn't. She was still Dally's girlfriend whether she wanted to cheat on him or not.


End file.
